IT’S PEDAL FOR THE METAL AS RYAN TAKES RIGHT TURN
Five years after taking up cycling, Ryan has sights set on world championship gold has sights set on world championship gold
CAROLINE Ryan arrives home for Christmas later this afternoon. She will have plenty to reflect upon during the flight back from Mallorca. The past 12 months have been good; very good. Her bronze medal at a world cup event in Mexico only a few weeks ago has promised even greater things ahead in 2014.
When the world track cycling championships take place in Colombia next February, Ireland will have both male and female contenders. Martyn Irvine, who will be defending his omnium world title and Ryan, a converted rower who only took up the sport five years ago.
With no indoor training facility in Ireland, the elite squad base themselves in the Balearic Islands for most of the year and that has led to success that has exceeded all expectations.
Irvine’s achievement in becoming Ireland’s first world champion since the ‘Balbriggan Flyer’ Harry Reynolds won gold in the one-mile amateur race in Copenhagen back in 1896, stole the headlines. Twelve months earlier though, Ryan had taken bronze at the world championships in Melbourne.
However, it was her recent third place at the world cup event in Mexico that truly underlined her potential ahead of the world championships. And it will be that prospect that will consume most of her thoughts as she catches up with family and friends in Kildare over the next week.
‘Winning the bronze medal in Mexico confirmed to me how well training was going and it justifies the effort and commitment that is being put in,’ the 34-year-old says.
IT WAS special to do my fastest time ever in a world cup event too, and it keeps track cycling in the news in Ireland, which is good.
‘But everything is geared towards the world championships at the end of February. I’m not looking past them.’
Ryan rarely even cycled for leisure when she came to the attention of Cycling Ireland through their talent identification programme.
Born into a famous rowing family in Kildare, she made history when she became the first Irish woman to win at the Henley Regatta.
When the Irish women’s lightweight fours team narrowly failed to qualify for the Beijing Olympics, she put the disappointment behind her, switching her focus entirely.
She was inspired by watching former rower Rebecca Romero win a gold medal for Team GB in the Individual Pursuit. Cycling was something new to her. Even as an international athlete, most of her endurance training was running.
‘Initially, it was hard to give up rowing because I was doing well at international level and cycling was a very new discipline to me. I had an awful lot to learn when I first started five years ago and it was a real shock to the system. It took me a while but I am getting there now,’ she explains.
At the end of the 2008 rowing season, she tested for the cycling squad. ‘After watching Rebecca Romero transfer from rowing to track cycling, I was interested in giving it a go. And they called me back for further testing and said I had the ideal physique for cycling.’
Her next test was at the UCI track cycling centre in the Swiss city of Aigle. That is when she truly got the buzz. ‘I loved it and there was no going back from there. There’s a great buzz riding at speed in a velodrome. You can’t beat it.’
But, emotionally, it was a tough change. Her dad, Willie, and uncle Ted, were top oarsmen, representing Ireland at two Olympic Games, Montreal 1976 and Moscow 1980.
‘My dad and Ted coached me, along with Brendan Duane who was their coach when they raced at the Olympics. It was hard to leave the sport, when there was so much family
It was hard to leave rowing with so many of my family involved
involved but they were fully supportive and just wanted to see me do well.
IHAVE been back in a boat a few times, just for fun, but I am fully focused on cycling and I don’t really have any time for anything else apart from the bike, to be honest.’
Ryan initially showed her talent piloting a tandem for blind cyclist Catherine Walsh in the Paralympics and winning two world silvers.
After claiming a bronze medal at the 2012 world championships, she decided to take leave of absence from the Garda Siochána and become a full-time athlete. It has been a struggle, surviving on her Sports Council grant and basing herself in Mallorca, but it’s made easier when the medals start to come in.
It was a hard decision to make at the time, taking the career break, but it was the only option for moving forward with my training and improvement as a cyclist. There is no way I would have won that bronze medal in Mexico a few weeks ago, if I was still working.’
Her performances along with those of Irvine, have increased the pressure for an indoor training facility. Cycling Ireland, along with Badminton Ireland, has prepared a proposal for the Sports Campus in Abbotstown, which includes an indoor training track and badminton court.
‘There is no doubt that we can compete with any other nation if the facilities and environment are right,’ Ryan proclaims. ‘We have to travel a lot to train. There’s no doubt if we could train at home, like other nations, it would be a huge advantage.
‘And it would be great for the future of Irish track cycling, not just for the elite riders but the pool of young talent coming through. It will only mean that pool gets bigger and bigger.’
For the next few days, Ryan will hang out with her family and friends. ‘Just doing normal Christmas stuff. It’s actually good because last year, I only had two days off at Christmas. It is great to have a few more.’
But she’s flying back to Mallorca on Saturday morning. Not to catch a bit of winter sunshine, but to build the foundation towards realising a dream at the world championships in February – a dream that seemed almost impossible when she first left the boat for a bike five years ago.